LinkedIn: Did you know that recruiters spend only 6 seconds reviewing each resume they receive (if they read it at all)? And those are just the resumes that actually make it to a human for review. First, resumes must pass the filtering algorithms of an applicant tracking system (ATS). Knowing the uphill battle your CV or resume must go through to simply get a call back for a first interview, it's important to know how to write a resume that will appeal to a robot recruiter.
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While applying for summer internships this year, I noticed that many institutions and organizations use semi-automated processes for mining resume data and other information about applicants. As such, it is critical that a resume be formatted to pass these robots in order to be seen by an actual human being. It is definitely possible to push out applications to various organizations in a tsunami of paper, but that will not matter in the least if robots are throwing out your resume before anyone can even see it. Including keywords and phrases from the posted job description are key to making it past the automated system. Yet, formatting only for robots is boring. Ensuring that your resume is legible to robots and humans alike is important! The human aspect is, was, and hopefully always will be critical to the overall hiring process. My parents taught me to always write a thank you note or email after every interview. It shows that you care about the job and appreciate the hiring person's time and attention. In a world where everything is becoming digital and informal, a little human touch can make or break your hiring decisions.
We take a class called production planning where we have Molly, who is a stage and production manager, come and teach the class how to organize both you thoughts and time and how to manager your life as a student and as a person better. Because we talk about life, we talked about becoming employed and working to get paid and all that jazz. So, indefinitely, we talked about resumes and how to construct them and how to appeal to a certain targeted audience. Different things attractive different people, and everyone loves when you show a sign of caring because they know when you did your research and when you didn’t. In order to appeal you have to understand what you are appealing to and how to not completely sift you as a person but try to find common ground and interests in order to create a bond and have them remember you.
I don’t know how prevalent or not prevalent the use of automated tools like this is within the theatre industry. My guess is that they’re used, but maybe not to quite the same degree or prevalence that they might be used in a more corporate, larger industry with less specific skill-based positions. Either way, it’s probably better safe than sorry to set up your resume so to appeal to the algorithms. That being said, there is so much variation even within the industry of what different terms and titles mean (for instance, whether the master electrician is head of lighting or simply responsible for power distribution), it might be difficult to effectively set up your formatting and wording to appeal to all the different tools that might be used. I think in an industry like theatre especially, it can certainly help you get ahead to try to beat the system like this, but the most effective networking is classic person to person. People will hire you if they know you can do your job, or if someone who does know you recommends you.
I know this tactic of using robots to sift through applications has been becoming more prevalent in many industries, although I’m not sure how relevant it is to theater jobs and performing arts in general. The nature of our applications is more about who you know and what you can do than meeting specific keywords, and from what I’ve seen the industry is small enough for companies to not be receiving thousands of applications for the same position, which is what sparked the idea of using robots in the first place. I think it’s interesting how articles and techniques like this are a logical consequence of doing a robotic first pass- everyone wants to give themselves the best chance possible, and so we adapt to new techniques. Even if robots might not be prevalent in our job searches right now, it’s probably not a bad idea to switch up formatting a little anyway- better safe than sorry and as long as it stays legible and well-written to humans as well there should be no issue with doing something like changing items in our ‘skills’ section to the exact wordings used in the job listing.
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